The Complete Beginner's Guide to Writing Articles

by Anna-Marie Stewart Venton

So how do you get started? What do you write about? What do you actually DO with your articles once you've written them? It seems daunting, I know. I was petrified myself when I first started writing articles, I still get nervous every time I start submitting a new article all over the net.

Getting Started:

Do you have a passion? Are you particularly well-versed in a certain topic? Are you willing to invest time in doing research? Either one of these are all you really need, but if you've got all 3, then you're definitely on the right track.

Grab a cuppa, a smoke, whatever you need to relax with, open up notepad/wordpad or even grab a pen and paper. Write down a 5-6 line bio about yourself and/or the product/program you're promoting, this is commonly known as your "Resource Box", and should be at the bottom of each and every article you write. The "Resource Box" is THE only place you should promote ANYTHING at all in the article.

Next you need to focus on a topic. Start jotting down thoughts, and don't worry about how mixed up they may seem to be at first, just keep going. If you can't think of many things at first, save your work, and look it over another day, more ideas will pop into your head.

Once you feel you have enough, start moving things around until they really begin to make sense to you. Keep going until you're happy with what you've got. Remember, articles don't need to be mega-long, so long as they are helpful and informative. Write as you would speak, and make it personal, as if you are talking to a good friend. Let your personality shine through.

What to write about:

As I mentioned above, anything you are passionate about, or are well-versed on is a great start. You're not passionate about anything? Not an "expert" in any subject at all? Well do some research. Start by thinking about what YOU would like to read about, what kind of information would YOU find helpful? Thought about it? Go to http://www.google.com and type it in, see what comes up, start looking into the various things you find. You could even ask friends and colleagues what THEY would be interested in reading articles about.

What, still can't come up with anything? It gets like that sometimes, so relax, take a deep breath, and start visiting forums/message boards. What questions are being asked? What do people need help with? Hang out in chat rooms, ask the same questions there, get as much feedback as you can, then start working from there. Eventually, you'll find you've managed to write a GREAT article, in plain English, offering helpful/useful information.

Let a couple of your closest, most honest friends read through your articles for you. Don't get offended if they make suggestions, some of them might even be good ones...hehehe, but make sure you stick with how it feels best for you.

So now what:

This is where the REAL hard work comes into play, cos now you're ready to start submitting your articles to the world :~) Ok, if you want to go the easy way about it, stop reading now, go buy yourself some automatic submission software and get stuck into submitting your articles with it.

Personally, I prefer hard graft, and sometimes a bit of the personal touch. So for starters, I subscribe to a LOT of ezines that cover the topics I write about, then I offer the publishers my articles. Most of them are like me, and LOVE being first to publish well written articles. A nice personal mail usually gets that wheel turning ;~)

Then there's all the article directories, and there's TONS of them. It's hard work submitting manually to them all, but then at least you know for definite that they WERE actually submitted. Don't worry, I'm not going to make you search for them, I'll list all my
favorites here for you, and that's going to at least cut down a little on your work-load...hehehe

So here goes:

The first one is my personal favorite, as they make a webpage for your article and submit it to search engines for free. The rest are in no particular order

Use these ideas and resources to promote yourself with, and even though it's scary at first, it DOES get better with practice, take it from a gal who's been there. Always add your "Resource Box" and copyright information with EVERY article and EVERY submission, it's free advertising for you, and if your articles are good enough, they will be used over and over again.

Good Luck, Happy writing and submitting, and have fun!
May you be prosperous in everything you do.
Anna-Marie Stewart Venton